Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet approved on Thursday a $53 billion extra budget for the current fiscal year to fund stimulus steps announced last week aimed at offsetting the blow from a planned increase in the national sales tax.

Days before Shinzo Abe became Japan’s prime minister in December 2012, he remarked “Central banks around the world are printing money, supporting their economies and increasing exports. America is the prime example. If it goes on like this, the yen will inevitably strengthen. It’s vital to resist this.”

Shinzo Abe’s remarks summarized a prevalent theme in central banks’ attempts to jumpstart their domestic economies today – money printing. I prefer to call it currency printing since it is fiat currencies that are being created out of thin air.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday he will go ahead with a plan to raise the national sales tax in April and promised a stimulus package to cushion its impact, stressing that the country needs to achieve both fiscal consolidation and economic growth to exit 15 years of debilitating deflation.

Japan must raise its sales tax to at least 20 percent by the time the Olympics come to Tokyo in 2020 to avert a “disaster” in its bond market, according to the head of a panel advising the world’s biggest pension fund.